Survivor Spoilsports

. . .

COMING UP ON EPISODE ELEVEN
Use your cursor to highlight the hidden text below.

The next episode begins with a jolt, as the remaining players find they have no idea who they voted off last time. "Now that we’ve stripped the show of anyone with personality," someone or other points out, "we can’t tell whether one of the rest of us is completely gone or just slightly more dull than usual." The tribe frets about whether they should have kept Jerri or Alicia or Jeff around for entertainment, until Colby snaps them out of it by declaring, "If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas." Out of habit, Amber adds, "And a happy new year!" To which Colby replies, "Wait, you’re still here?"

Bored and lacking energy, the tribe decides to kill time by cooking and eating all of the copious rice that Jeff Probst gave them in the last episode. As Colby puts it, "If starch and grains were Lionel trains, we’d all have a happy birthday." But when lunch is done and Barramundi settles in for its afternoon nap, trouble arrives in the form of a flash rainstorm. Tina complains bitterly about the lack of material for building a shelter until Colby retorts, "If elderly hags were tarps and flags, we’d all be a whole lot drier." Eduardo convinces the others that they’re better off anyway, since the old tent was starting to smell like Nick’s ass.

The next day, Jeff Probst tells the contestants that because they’ve been so unappealing recently, instead of a reward challenge, they’re going to have a punishment challenge. The players are given cash ("It’s real money!" exclaims Amber, but Elisabeth points out that it’s actually Australian money), and then forced to sit through ten minutes of shameless product placement. Reluctantly, the starving outcasts purchase meals of Doritos, Mountain Dew and Bud Light, although Jeff is unable to get any bids for the Pontiac Aztec.

Before long, the junk food binge catches up with everyone. "I’m gonna make a trip over the hill," Rodger announces. "You’re already there," everyone else shouts in unison. As one person after another heads off, Colby muses, "If viewers’ expectations were for more defecations, we’d all have really high ratings." Attempts to turn the latrine-a-thon into a bonding experience falter after Rodger makes the charming observation that his leaf has a hole in it, and Tina responds by singing, "There’s a whole in the leaf, dear Liza, dear Liza."

To add insult to gastrointestinal discomfort, Australian authorities soon arrive to fine everyone for ecological destruction in the form of causing a nature preserve to smell like ass. "Not again," moans Colby. "I mean, it’s not like we were doing anything dangerous like drag racing on a public street."

The following day, Jeff Probst makes an unexpected appearance at the Barramundi camp. "Here’s the deal," he explains. "If people want to watch horrifically emaciated starvation victims, they’ll switch to ‘Friends.’ Since we can’t have that, I’m going to help you out. But it’s going to cost you." First, he offers the tribe a bag of rice, but only on the condition that Keith cooks it. This is too cruel, and they refuse. Then he says he’ll give it to them if they let him burn the Texas flag. Colby replies, "If game show hosts were as smart as most, they’d know not to mess with Texas." Eventually the tribe agrees to Jeff’s final offer: "Fifty dollars to me at the door plus a blowjob later."

But before the tribe can celebrate, disaster strikes as another rainstorm causes the river to swell rapidly. As the raging water begins to engulf the camp, the full weight of the situation hits Elisabeth, and she shrieks, "Oh my God! Nick washed his ass in that river!"